This is a story about the literal intersection of police, guns, gangs, speeding, pedestrian crosswalks, motor vehicle accidents, and the sudden, traumatic, and innocent bystander death of the co-founder of a visible startup. And you guys expect no discussion of politics?
Can you point to a single story since the inception of Hacker News that quite obviously involved the intersection of hacker/startup culture with the rest of society where politics were not discussed? What is any discussion about wealth or economics if not politics? Is it a vanishingly small percentage of PG's essays that express a strong political opinion?
As far as I'm concerned, discussing politics as they relate to hacker culture is on topic. Discussing the Boston Marathon bombing, not so on-topic, but nevertheless people here had interesting things to say from a hacker perspective. I'll be the first to agree that political extremism is aggravating, but the solution to political extremism is not the avoidance of politics altogether.
> I'll be the first to agree that political extremism is aggravating, but the solution to political extremism is not the avoidance of politics altogether.
On the contrary, avoidance of all politics is a wonderful individual solution to political extremism. Which is why so many "normal" people refuse to get involved at all, which is why all of us "normal" people end up so surprised every 2 years over a bunch of reactionary representatives being elected.
At least on HN you were able to have reasoned political discourse, which is far less aggravating. Even where I disagree with others I love being exposed to angles I hadn't considered, cultural nuances that might explain why something would work in the EU that wouldn't work in the U.S. (and vice versa), and all of that.
But from what I can tell even on HN we're shifting farther and farther away from that into the creationist mold of "I have decided what the answer must be, now I need only twist the facts to suit". Even where the answer that's decided on is actually right, that's no way to conduct a 'debate'.
So basically I feel the same way, having had several HN accounts over the years, and feeling totally disenfranchised as a voter, except that I think if more normal people said more normal, boring, nuanced, middle of the road type things about politics then the people having fights with each other wouldn't be so annoying, because they are a tiny fraction of the population. I understand this is a bit of a pipe dream, and it's frustrating when that tiny fraction dominates the conversation. It's just difficult to want to participate at all when people prioritize winning an argument over understanding the issues at hand.
I'm quite interested, and in my own way, involved in politics. I also follow bicycle racing with a passion, for that matter. But I don't think either one belongs on this particular web site.
This site has been a great resource for me in terms of startup material, also a good place to learn new things about 'computer stuff', and also occasionally read something genuinely new and interesting. I hate to see it dragged down into the mud of political debate, which tends to wreck communities such as this.
If you people want politics here, I guess you'll get it. But you won't get politics and a quality site about hacking and startups.